Jonathan Majors reflects on his 'dream and hope' of a Hollywood comeback

"You wanted to talk, so let's talk."

Jonathan Majors is polite and emotional, thoughtful and measured when discussing personal and professional issues, and he has a lot to say about the tumultuous past two years.

When "Magazine Dreams" premiered in January 2023 at the Sundance Film Festival, Majors was on top of his game. He was coming off the war drama "Devotion," and had two big roles on the way with "Creed III" and "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," which introduced him as Marvel's high-profile new villain Kang the Conqueror. Yet "Magazine Dreams," an indie character study starring Majors as an ambitious and increasingly unhinged muscle man, had "Oscar campaign" written all over it.

Then everything fell apart. He was arrested in March 2023 after an alleged domestic violence altercation with then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. Nine months later, a Manhattan jury found Majors guilty of one misdemeanor assault charge and one harassment violation. In April 2024, he was sentenced to a yearlong counseling program and an order of protection was issued for Jabbari. Meanwhile, "Magazine Dreams" was shelved, Marvel fired him, roles disappeared and he was left in Hollywood limbo.

He's again at a career crossroads as "Magazine Dreams" arrives in theaters this weekend: Majors, 35, stars as Killian Maddox, a socially awkward amateur bodybuilder whose pursuit to be remembered takes him to a bleak and violent psychological place. "When I think back on the film, the moments of him trying to connect, I see them now in HD because I now understand in my life the validity of that need and the absolute necessity for it," he says.

When it comes to his career's future, "all I can do, like Killian, is dream and hope and put a plan in place," says Majors, and he's "putting things together in a way that, in this next chapter, I am the best version of myself, not just playing a really cool character in a really cool way."

In an interview conducted the same day audio resurfaced in which Majors allegedly admits to assaulting Jabbari, the actor spoke with USA TODAY about the new movie, his support system and how he’s changed since his legal troubles started.

Edited and condensed for clarity.

Question: What’s the significance of "Magazine Dreams" finally coming out right now, and does it put your career into a new perspective? 

Answer: Brother, I love the positivity. I appreciate it. I think the film has a life of itself. I'm obviously an integral part to that. (From) a career perspective, man, it would've been cool to have that come out when we were running and that obviously wasn't the plan, ultimately. Due to some of my personal events, things paused. It's well-recorded where my career was and where everything was at that moment in Sundance. That would've been interesting.

Two years later, and now the film is coming out from an artist's perspective at the perfect time. At the perfect time for the industry, our art form, the people and the country, in a way. I think it was just another vehicle for Jonathan Majors, for myself, and that's cool, but art needs to be impactful, and I think something else has happened. My career and myself were not necessarily on the same level at that time. I had to sacrifice a lot of myself to build the career in the way it was. And now after this two-year hiatus, this two-year self-workshop, I'm working to be in a place and I'm closer to a place where I'm capable of speaking to the film at the level that the film deserves.

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When we talked a few years ago, you mentioned that a fictional role comes from imagination, and you need to live a little bit of that character. I'm curious what that entailed for you playing Killian. Was that you in some ways working through past traumas and your own dark moments?

Yeah, absolutely. As an actor, I use all of myself all the time, and there's terrain inside oneself that you don't really know or recognize. There were buried-away childhood traumas, of sexual assault as a young boy and for a prolonged period of time, that literally me and my family are dealing with now for the first time. There's no doubt that everything that happens to a person manifests itself someplace, and I was fortunate enough that, through my training and through my God, I understood certain things on a very deep level without understanding why, until I confronted those things.

One of the things we're dealing with in the picture a lot, just by the nature of being in the bodybuilding world, is that the reflection is such an important thing. The whole film, and this is where Killian and I have things in common, he's being driven by this little boy inside of him. And this little boy is so lovable and so unprotected that he then decides to find something that will help him protect himself. But it's isolating.

How have you changed as a person in the past two years?

I appreciate the question, and I'm excited to answer it because for instance, I'm sitting here right now, and one of my best buddies in the whole world is sitting to my left. That's a world in which I would never operate. I was so focused on separation of church and state, a bit of an isolationist, a bit of a lone wolf. It only got me so far. But in the past two years, with everything I've been participating in, and all the reflection I've gotten to have, my fiancée (Meagan Good), my buddy over here, I understand that there is a need to connect. There is a need to have support and help, and you have to help and support yourself – your full self, not just your mind, not just your body, not just your heart. Everything has to be supported to be made whole. Am I whole now? Nowhere close. But there's an understanding that I'm not whole now.

That's a huge shift for me. I'm very grateful for this time to have done that, for all my buddies and partner who have been there with me as I tried to relearn so many things.

How much has it helped you not only to have Meagan in your corner, but peers like Michael B. Jordan and Matthew McConaughey having your back, too, and saying, "We want to work with this guy again"?

This industry is wild, man, with brave human beings who can look at something for its wholeness and take the crookeds with the straights, to quote August Wilson. Michael B. Jordan is a dear buddy of mine, and McConaughey represents to me so many things but chief among them would be he's a gentleman. He's a curious wise man and to be in community with them means a lot. And Whoopi Goldberg, who was a family friend and was also the first and only EGOT I've ever worked with. To have them use their voices and use their platforms to reach back and go, "We see you, brother," and say, "OK, that's that, and that's that. Because you're working on this, we're gonna work on that," it means a lot.

What do you believe this next chapter of your career looks like? If Marvel calls tomorrow and offers you Kang back, do you say yes?

Yeah, of course, I say yes. Disney, Marvel Studios, I love them. Tom Hiddleston, loved working with that guy. Loved working with Paul Rudd. Loved working with Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I love the industry so much, and now I'm in the place where I can feel the love from them and actually express my love for them. For a long time, my mind was set very much like Killian: "If I do this well, you will love me." Jesus, bro. (Wipes away a tear.) "If I give everything I got in preparation in between action and cut, there's no way you can't love me." But then I was isolated after that.

Now I'm in a space where I have enough confidence in myself – not my talent but in myself, the thing I've been sitting with for two years. I can give you all of me as a character between action and cut, and I can give you all of me as myself in the trailer and (off the set). Still got to prep. Let's not get it twisted (laughs), I still need to focus. I still need do my job. But I can search for that community throughout.

You’ve talked previously about being devoted to acting and to making art. Is your passion still as strong as it was, or has it waned or changed in any way?

I'm glad you said changed. I'm going to hit that, but I'm going to go back to one of the very first things you said: How have I changed in this process over the past two years with everything? I would say I've grown. I would say the same thing (about acting): It hasn't changed, it's grown. I don't want to spook anybody, but I've dedicated my life to this. Outside of my family and my God, this is what I've dedicated it to, and now I'm coming back to it with more understanding. And with more understanding, I have even a bigger appetite.

The movie was operating at such a level that I was very quickly humbled: What we did in the art of Killian Maddox and "Magazine Dreams," me as I was in that moment, I had to grow to match it. So now I'm taking that growth and I'm applying it to hopefully the next 20 years of a career. I want to do it. I need to do it. (The future's) not in my control. But to answer your question, the fire's only bigger to create and to shed light and healing through the work because I think that's what it's for.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jonathan Majors talks Hollywood future amid bombshell audio leak